Premix membrane emulsification using flat microfiltration inorganic membranes with tailored structure and composition

Abstract Uniform oil-in-water emulsions were prepared using MCT (medium-chain fatty acid triglyceride, 10 wt%) as the oily dispersed phase and polysorbate 80 as the surfactant (1 wt%). The emulsification process was performed via premix membrane emulsification (PME) using 3 flat microfiltration ceramic membranes with different mean pore sizes (dm): borosilicate (symmetric, commercial, dm: 1.39 μm); SiOC (symmetric, manufactured, dm: 1.76 μm); and mullite (asymmetric, manufactured, dm: 1.18 μm). The droplets size and their distribution varied according to the membrane type and number of permeation cycles (up to a limit of 2 passes). All prepared emulsions presented a tendency to monomodal droplet distribution with span values in the range of 0.82–0.97. The coarse emulsion (premix) droplets were reduced from 6.30 to 4.50–2.17 μm. The asymmetric membrane (mullite) exhibited the highest permeation fluxes at constant relative pressure for both water (43.1 × 10−3 m3 m−2 s−1) and premix (Pass 1: 4.6 × 10−3 m3 m−2 s−1; Pass 2: 5.3 × 10−3 m3 m−2 s−1), still maintaining satisfactory emulsification results.